XI

The day began with placid routine. Breede did his accustomed two-hours'

monologue. And no one molested Bean. No one appeared to know that he was

other than he seemed, and that big things were going forward. Tully

ignored him. Markham, who had the day before called him "Old man!"

whistled obliviously as they brushed past each other in the hall. No

directors called him in to tell him that would never do with _them_.

He was grateful for the lull. He couldn't be "stirred up" that way every

day. And he needed to gather strength against Breede when Breede should

discover that exquisite joke of the flapper's. He suspected that the

flapper wouldn't find it funny to keep the thing from poor old Pops more

than a few days longer.

"I'll be drawing my last pay next Saturday," he told himself.

"Telephone for Boston Baked," called the office-boy wit, late in the

afternoon.

Bulger looked sympathetic.

"Same trouble I have," he confided as Bean passed him, "Take 'em on once

and they bother the life out of you."

"You'd never believe," came the voice of the flapper. "I found the

darlingest old sideboard with claw-feet yesterday over on Fourth Avenue.

He wants two hundred and eighty, but they're all robbers, and I just

perfectly mean to make him come down five or ten dollars. Every little

counts. You leave it to me."

"Sure! You fix it all up!"

"And maybe we won't want fumed oak in the dining-room--maybe a rich

mahogany stain. Would that suit? I'm only thinking of you."

"I'll leave all that to you; you'll perfectly well manage."

"I just perfectly darling well knew you'd say that; and I'm sending you

down a car--"

"A what? Car?" This was even more alarming than the darling old

sideboard.

"Just a little old last year's car. Poor old Pops would give it to me

now if I asked him--but it's just as well to have it away in case Moms

could ever make him change his mind, only of course she perfectly well

can't do anything of the sort. But anyway I'm sending it to that shop

around the corner in the street below you, and they'll hold it there to

your order. You never can tell; we might need it suddenly some time, and

anyway you ought to have it, don't you see, because I'm just perfectly

giving it to you this minute, and you can run about in it with that

dearest dog, and it's the very first thing I ever gave you, isn't it?

I'll always remember it just for that. It will do us all right for a few

weeks, until we can look around. And there never was any one before, was

there? You just needn't answer; you'd have to say 'No,' and anyway

Granny says a young--you know what--should never ask silly questions

about what happened before she met him, because it perfectly well makes

rows, and I know she's right, but there never _was_, was there, and no

matter anyway, because it's settled forever now, and we _do_, don't we?

My! but I'm excited. Don't forget what I said about the brass andirons

and the curtains for your den. Goo'-bye."

"Huh! yes, of course not!" said Bean, but the flapper had gone.

Back at the typewriter he tried to collect his memories of her message:

sideboard with darling feet of some kind, no fumed oak, perhaps--brass

andirons, curtains for his den. He couldn't recall what she had said

about those. Maybe it would come to him. He wished he had told her that

he already had a few good etchings. And the car! That was plain in his

mind--little old last year's thing--at that shop around the corner. Did

one say "garrash" or "garrige"? He heard both.

Anyway, he owned a motor car; you couldn't get around that. Maybe Bulger

wouldn't open his eyes if he knew it. Bulger was an authority on cars,

and spoke in detail of their strange insides with the aplomb of a man

who has dissected them for years. He had violent disputes with the

second bookkeeper about which was the best car for the money. The

bookkeeper actually owned a motorcycle, or would, after he had paid five

dollars a month a few more times, but Bulger would never allow this

minor contrivance to be brought into their discussions. Bulger was

intolerant of anything costing under five thou'--eat you up with

repairs.

Bean longed to approach Bulger and say:

"Some dame, that! Just sent me a little old last year's car."

But he knew this would never do. Bulger would not only tell him why the

car was of an inferior make, but he would want to borrow it to take a

certain party, or maybe the gang, out for a spin, and get everybody

killed or arrested or something. Bulger dressed fearlessly; no one with

eyes could deny that; but he was tactless. Better keep that car under

cover.

At seven-thirty that evening, with Nap on a leash, he strolled into the

garage. He carried the yellow stick and the gloves, and he was prepared

to make all sorts of a nasty row if they tried to tell him the car

wasn't there, or so much as hinted that he might not be the right party.

He knew how to deal with those automobile sharks.

"I believe you have a car here for me--Mr. Bean," he said briskly. It

was the first time in all his life that he had spoken of himself as "Mr.

Bean!" He threw his shoulders back even farther when he had achieved it.

The soiled person whom he addressed merely called to another soiled

person who, near at hand, seemed to be beating an unruly car into

subjection. The second person merely ducked his head backward and over

his right shoulder.

"All right, all right!" said the first person, and then to Bean, "All

right, all right!"

The car was before him, a large, an alarming car--and red! It was as

red as the unworn cravat. Good thing it was getting dark. He wouldn't

like to go out in the daytime in one as red as that, not at first.

He ran his eyes critically over it, trying to look disappointed.

"Good shape?" he demanded.

"How about it, Joe? She all right?"

Joe perceptibly stopped hammering.

"Garrumph-rumph!" he seemed to say.

"Well?" said the first person, eying Bean as if this explained

everything.

"Take a little spin," said Bean.

"Paul!"

Paul issued from the office, a shock-headed, slouching youth in extreme

negligée, a half-burned cigarette dangling from his lower lip. He yawned

without dislodging the cigarette.

"Gentleman wants to g'wout." Paul vanished.

Nap had already leaped to a seat in the red car. He had learned what

those things were for.

Paul reappeared, trim in leathern cap, well-fitting Norfolk jacket and

shining puttees.

"Never know he only had on an undershirt," thought Bean, struck by this

swiftly devised effect of correct dressing. He sat in the roomy rear

seat beside Nap, leaning an elbow negligently on the arm-rest. He

watched Paul shrewdly in certain mysterious preparations for starting

the car. An observer would have said that one false move on Paul's part

would have been enough.

The car rolled out and turned into the wide avenue half a block away.

"Where to, Boss?" asked Paul.

"Just around," said Bean. "Tea and things!"

They glided swiftly on.

"Oh, just a little old last year's car!" said Bean, frowning royally at

a couple of mere foot people who turned to stare.

What would that flapper do next?

He surrendered to the movement. Drunkenly he mused upon a wild

inspiration to bring Ram-tah out and give him a ride in this big red

car. It appealed to him much. Ram-tah would almost open his eyes at the

novelty of that progress. But he felt that this was no safe thing to do.

He would be arrested. The whole secret might come out.

He had retained no sense of direction, but he was presently conscious of

the river close at his side, and then the car, with warning blasts,

curved up to a much lighted building and halted. A large man in uniform

came solicitously to help him descend and gave him a fragment of

cardboard which he knew would redeem his motor.

He was seated at a table looking down upon the shining river.

"Tea and things," he said to the waiter.

"Yes, sir; black or green, sir?"

"Bottle ginger ale!" How did he know whether he wanted black or green

tea. No time to be fussy.

He began a lordly survey of the people at neighbouring tables--people

who had doubtless walked there, or come in hired cabs, at the best.

Hired cabs had yesterday seemed impressive to him; now they were rather

vulgar. Of course, there might be circumstances--

He froze like a pointing dog. At a table not twenty feet distant,

actually in the flesh, sat the Greatest Pitcher the World Has Ever

Known. For a moment he could only stare fixedly. The man was simply

_there_! He was talking volubly to two other men, and he was also eating

a mere raspberry ice!

It showed how things "worked around," once you got started. Hadn't his

whole life been a proof of this? How many times had he wished he might

happen upon that Pitcher just as he was now, in street clothes--to look

at him, study him! He wished _he_ had ordered raspberry ice instead of

ginger ale, which he didn't like. He would order one anyway.

It was all Ram-tah. If you knew you were a king, you needn't ever worry

again. You sat still and let things come to you. After all, a king was

greater than a pitcher, if you came down to it--in some ways, certainly.

He stared until the group left the table. He could actually have touched

the Pitcher as he passed. Would wonders never cease?

Two men in uniform helped him into the big red car again, tenderly, as

if he were fragile. He had meant to return to the garage, but now he saw

the more dignified way was to stop at his own house. Further, Paul

should take him to the office in the morning and call for him at

four-thirty again. He wouldn't be afraid to ride in the red car even in

daylight now. Sitting there not twenty feet from that Pitcher!

"Eight o'clock in the morning," he said curtly to Paul as he descended.

And Paul touched his leather cap respectfully as the car moved off.

Cassidy lounged near in shirt sleeves.

"I see three was kilt-up in wan yistaday in th' Bur-ronx," said Cassidy

interestedly.

"Good thing for the tired business man, though," said Bean, yawning in a

bored way. "And that fellow of mine is careful."

Then his seeming boredom vanished.

"Say, you can't guess who I saw just now. Close to him as I am to you

this minute--"

* * * * *

Solitary in the big red car, descending the crowded lanes of the city

the next morning, Bean's sensations were conceivably those that had been

Ram-tah's at the zenith of his power. There was the fragrant and

cherished memory of the Greatest Pitcher, and a car to ride solitary in

that simply blared the common herd from before it. People in street-cars

looked enviously out at him. He lolled urbanely, with a large public

manner. When you were a king you behaved like one, and the world knelt

to you. Great pitchers sitting under the same roof with you; red

motor-cars; fumed oak dining-rooms; flappers; brokers; shares. He wished

he had thought to chew an unlighted cigar in this resplendent chariot.

There seemed to be almost a public demand for it. Certain things were

expected of a man!

"Be here at four-thirty," he directed.

And Paul, his fellow, glancing up along the twenty-two stories of the

office building, was impressed. He considered it probable that the bored

young man owned this building. "The guys that have gits!" thought Paul.

Bean was preposterously working once more, playing the part of a cog on

the wheel. Another day, it seemed, of that grotesque nonsense, even

after the world's Greatest Pitcher had sat not twenty feet from him the

night before, eating raspberry ice. But events could not long endure

_that_ strain. Before the day was over Breede would undoubtedly "fire"

him, with two or three badly chosen words; actually go through the form

of discharging a man who had once ruled all Egypt with a kindly but an

iron hand!

Of course, the fellow was unconscious of this, as he still must be of

the rare joke the flapper was exquisitely holding over his head. His

demeanour toward Bean betrayed no recognition of shares or pitchers or

big red cars, nor of the ever-impending change in their relationship. He

dictated fragments of English words, and Bean reconstructed them with

the cunning of a Cuvier. He felt astute, robust, and disrespectful. Just

one wrong word from Breede and all would be over between them. The poor

old wreck didn't dream that he had nursed a flapper in his bosom, a

flapper that would just perfectly have what she wanted--and no good

fussing.

In the outer office, however, he was aware that his expansion was subtly

making itself felt. Bulger had insensibly altered and was treating him

after the manner of a fellow club man. Old Metzeger said "Good morning!"

to him affectionately--for Metzeger--and once he detected Tully staring

at him through the enlarging glasses as if in an effort to read his very

soul. But he knew his soul was not to be read by such as Tully. Tully,

back there on the Nile, would have been a dancer--at the most, a fancy

skater--if, indeed, he had risen to the human order, and were not still

a slinking gazelle. Good name that, for Tully. He would remember

it--gazelle!

At three o'clock he glanced aside from his typewriter to see a director

enter Breede's room. He did not lift his look above the hem of the man's

coat, but he knew him for the quiet one. And yet, when the door closed

upon him, he seemed to become as noisy as any of them. Bean heard his

voice rising.

Another director came, the big one who gripped a cigarette with an

obviously cigar mouth. Once behind the shut door he seemed to approve of

the noise and to be swelling its volume.

Three other directors hurried in, the elderly advanced dresser in the

lead. He, of course, was always indignant, but now the other two were

manifesting choler equal to his own. They puffed and glowered and, when

the door had closed, they seemed to help skilfully with the uproar. It

was a mob scene.

Bean was reminded of a newspaper line he had once or twice encountered:

"The scene was one of indescribable confusion. Pandemonium reigned!"

Pandemonium indubitably seemed to reign over those directors. He

wondered. He wondered uncomfortably.

"Buzz-z-z-z! Buzz-z-z-z-z! Buzz-z-z-z-z-z!"

He quit wondering. He knew.

Yet for a moment after he stood in their presence they seemed to take no

note of him. They were not sitting decorously in chairs as he conceived

that directors should. The big one with the cigarette sat on the table,

ponderously balanced with a fat knee between fat red hands. Another

stood with one foot on a chair. Only the quiet one was properly sitting

down. The elderly advanced dresser was not even stationary. With the

faultless coat thrown back by pocketed hands, revealing a waist line

greater than it should have been, he strutted and stamped. He seemed to

be trying to step holes into the rug, and to be exploding intimately to

himself.

"Plain enough," said the man who had been studying his foot on the

chair. "Some one pulled the plug."

"And away she goes--shoosh!" said the big man dramatically.

"Kennedy & Balch buying right and left. Open at a hundred and

twenty-five to-morrow, sure!" said the quiet one quietly.

"Placed an order yesterday for four hundred shares and got 'em," said

another, not so quietly. "And to-day they're bidding Federal Express up

to the ceiling."

"Plug pulled!"

The advanced-dressing director strutted to the fore with a visibly

purpling face.

"Plug pulled? Want t' know _where_ it was pulled? Right in this office.

Want to know who pulled it? _That!_" He pointed unmistakably to the

child among them taking notes. At another time Bean might have quailed,

at least momentarily; but he had now discovered that the

advanced-dressing old gentleman used scent on his clothes. He was afraid

of no man who could do that in the public nostrils. He surveyed the old

gentleman with frank hostility, noting with approval, however, the

dignified yet different pattern of his waistcoat. But he knew the other

directors were looking hard at him.

"Shrimp! snake!" added the old gentleman, like a shocked naturalist

encountering a loathsome hybrid.

"Been plowing with our heifer?" asked Breede incisively.

Bean was familiar with that homely metaphor. He felt easier.

"_Your_ heifer!" He would have liked to snort as the old gentleman did,

but refrained from an unpractised effort! "Your heifer? No; I bought a

good fat yoke of steers to do my plowing. Took _his_ money to buy one of

'em with!" He waved a careless arm at the smouldering-vessel across the

table. They were all gasping, in horror, in disgust. He was a little

embarrassed. He sought to smooth the thing over a bit with his next

words.

"Eagle shot down with its own feather," he said, hazily recalling

something that had seemed very poetic when he read it.

"Wha'd I tell you? Wha'd I _tell_ you!" shouted the oldest director,

doing an intricate dance step.

"Hold 'ny Federal?" asked Breede.

"A block or two; several margins of it," said Bean.

"How many shares?"

"Have to ask Kennedy & Balch; they're my brokers. I guess about some

seven or eight hundred shares."

"Wha'd I tell you? Wha'd I _tell_ you?" again shouted the oldest

director, and, as if despairing of an answer, he swore surprisingly for

one of his refined garniture and aroma.

"Find out something in this office?" asked Breede, evenly.

"Why wouldn't I? I found out something the minute you sent people to me

with that 'By the way--' stuff. I knew it as quick as you had them

breaking their ankles trying to get my fifty shares. Knew it the very

minute you sent that--that slinking gazelle to me." He pointed at Tully.

[Illustration: "Oh, put up your trinkets!" said Bean, with a fine

affectation of weariness]

He had not meant to call Tully that. It rushed out. Tully wriggled

uneasily in his chair at the desk, blushed well into his yellow beard,

then drew out a kerchief of purest white silk and began nervously to

polish his glasses.

"Hoo-shaw-Ha-ha-Hooshway!"

It was Breede, with, for the moment, a second purple face on the Board

of Directors. Neither Bean nor Tully ever knew whether he had suppressed

a laugh or a sneeze.

"Come, come, _come_!" broke in the oldest, sweeping the largest director

aside with one finger as he pulled a chair to the table.

"This'll never do with _us_, you know! How much, how much, how much?"

He again poised the chastely wrought fountain pen of gold above the

dainty check-book in Morocco leather.

"Have to give 'em up you know; can't allow _that_ sort of underhand

work; where'd the world be, where'd it be, where'd it _be_? Sign an

order; tell me what you paid. Take your word for it!"

He was feeling for Bean the contempt which a really distinguished

safe-blower is said to feel for the cheap thief who purloins bottles of

milk from basement doorways in the gray of dawn.

"Now, now, _now_, boy!" The pen was still poised.

"Oh, put up your trinkets," said Bean with a fine affectation of

weariness.

The old gentleman sat back and exhaled a scented but vicious breath.

There was silence. It seemed to have become evident that the

unprincipled young scoundrel must be taken seriously.

Then spoke the largest director, removing from his lips a cigarette

which his own bulk seemed to reduce to something for a microscope only.

He had been silent up to this moment, and his words now caused Bean the

first discomfort he had felt.

"You will come here to-morrow morning," he began, slanting his entire

facial area toward Bean, "and you will make restitution for this

betrayal of trust. I think I speak for these gentlemen here, when I say

we will do nothing with you to-night. Of course, if we chose--but no;

you are a free man until to-morrow morning. After that all will depend

on you. You are still young; I shall be sorry if we are forced to adopt

extreme measures. I believe we shall all be sorry. But I am sure a night

of sober reflection will bring you to your senses. You will come here

to-morrow morning. You may go."

The slow, cool words had told. He tried to preserve his confident front,

as he turned to the door. He would have left his banner on the field but

for the oldest director, who had too long been silent.

"Snake in the grass!" hissed the oldest director, and instantly the

colours waved again from Bean's lifted standard. He did not like the

oldest director and he soared into the pure ether of verbal felicity,

forgetful of all threats.

He stared pityingly at the speaker a moment, then cruelly said:

"You know they quit putting perfumery on their clothes right after the

Chicago fire."

He left the room with faultless dignity.

"_Im_pertinent young whelp!" spluttered the oldest director; but his

first fellow-director who dared to look at him saw that he was gazing

pensively from the high window, his back to the group.

"No good," said the quiet director to the largest. "A little man's

always the hardest to bluff. Bet I could bluff you quicker than you

could bluff him!"

"Well, I didn't know what else," answered the largest director, who was

already feeling bluffed.

"Why didn't J.B. here assert himself then?"

"'Fraid he'd get mad's 'ell an' quit me," said Breede. "Only st'nogfer

ever found gimme minute's peace. Dunno why--talk aw ri'. He un'stan's

me; res' drive me 'sane."

"Plug's pulled, anyway," commented the quiet director. "Only thing to do

is haul in what we can on a rising market. God knows where she'll stop."

"Pound her down," said the largest director sagely.

"Any pounding now will pound her up."

"Hold off and let it die down."

"Only make it worse. No use; we've got to cut that money up."

"Seven hundred shares, did he say?" asked the large director. "Very

pretty indeed! J.B., I'll only give you one guess whether he quits his

job or not."

"Thasso!" admitted Breede dejectedly.

"He'll show up all right in the morning, mark me," said the largest

director, regaining confidence.

"Sneaking snake in the grass," muttered the oldest director, yet without

his wonted vim.

"I'll telephone to McCurdy, right in the next block here," continued the

largest director. "Might as well have this chap watched to-night and

keep tight to him to-morrow until he shows up. We may find somebody's

behind him."

"'S my idea," said Breede, "some one b'ind him."

"Grinning little ape!" remarked the oldest director bitterly.

To Bean in the outer office came the facetious boy.

"Telephone for Perfesser Bunker Hill Monument," he said, but spoiled it

by laughing himself. It was extempore and had caught him unawares. The

harried Bean fled to the telephone booth.

"I wanted to tell you," began the flapper, "not to eat anything out of

cans unless I just perfectly have it on my pure-food list. They poison

people, but the dearest grocer gave me a list of all the safe things,

made up by a regular committee that tells how much poison each thing has

in it, so you can know right off, or alcohol either. Now, remember! Oh,

yes, what was I going to say? Granny says the first glamour soon fades,

but after that you just perfectly settle down to solid companionship.

And oh, yes, I want you to let me just perfectly have my own way about

those hangings for the drawing-room, because you see I know, and, oh, I

had something else. No matter. Won't I be glad when the deal is adjusted

in the interests of all concerned, as poor old Pops says. Why don't you

tell me something? I'm just perfectly waiting to hear."

"Uh, of course, of course; you're just perfectly a slinking gazelle. Ha,

ha, ha!" answered Bean, laughing at his own jest after the manner of the

office-boy.

He was back making a feeble effort to finish the last of Breede's

letters. He glanced mechanically at his notes. Above that routine work

he had so many things to think about. He'd fixed Tully for good. Tully

wouldn't try that "by the way" and "not impossible" stuff with _him_ any

more. And that little old man--perfumery not used since the Chicago

fire, or had he said the Mexican War? No matter. And talked to Breede

about heifers. But there was the big-faced brute, speaking pretty

seriously. Let him go free _to-night_! State's prison offence, maybe!

Might be in jail this time to-morrow. Would the flapper telephone to him

there? Send him unpoisoned canned food? Would he be disgraced?

Breede--directors--glamour wearing off--slinking gazelles with yellow

whiskers--rotten perfumery. So rushed the turbulent flood of his mind.

But the letter was finished at last.

Two days later a certain traffic manager of lines west of Chicago read a

paragraph in this letter many times:

"The cramped conditions of this terminal have been of course appreciably

relieved by the completion of the westside cut-off. Nevertheless our

traffic has not yet attained its maximum, and new problems of congestion

will arise next year. I am engaged to that perfectly flapper daughter of

yours, and we are going to marry each other when she gets perfectly good

and ready. Better not fuss any. Let Julia do the fussing. To meet this

emergency I dare say it will come to four-tracking the old main line

over the entire division. It will cost high, but we must have a

first-class freight-carrier if we are to get the business."

The traffic manager at first reached instinctively for his telegraphic

cipher code. But he reflected that this was not code-phrasing. He read

the paragraph again and was obliged to remind himself that his only

daughter was already the wife of a man he knew to be in excellent

health. Also he was acquainted with no one named Julia.

He copied from the letter that portion of it which seemed relevant, and

destroyed the original. He had never heard it said of Breede; but he

knew there are times when, under continued mental strain, the most

abstemious of men will relax.